


mirror, mirror

by ottermo



Series: As Prompted [31]
Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mild Body Horror - but about robots, Post Series 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 11:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12456428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: Flash is faced with an unsettling new experience when a group of damaged synths turn up at the base.





	mirror, mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Week 1, Day 5 of the Humans 4-Week Challenge. The prompt was "After the End".

After the initial repairs are done, the other synth has to charge, and Flash helps her find a wire, and a place to sit. The skinpacks are working now, sealing up the worst of her visible wounds, but the damage to her arm will be more complicated to fix. It’s still twitching, even now - not the steady flicker of one finger to confirm that she’s charging, but a constant, slight movement of the entire limb, starting from the shoulder. Parts of her hair have been ripped out, and what is left hangs in uneven clumps. She only has one working eyelid - the other eye stares blankly out at Flash, constant and disconcerting.

Still, Flash cannot look away. This is the first time since her awakening that she’s seen a duplicate of herself. Earlier, they scanned for the synth’s serial number, to check what concentration of fluid transfusion she would require. She’s a Zoya P-T01, a decacore, just like Flash. They had almost definitely been manufactured within the same month. They had been sold to the same distributor.

If the Singhs had bought some other synth, or gone shopping for one three weeks earlier or later, Flash might have ended up just like her.

This is a strange feeling, an unfamiliar one. Which is saying something, because until recently all of Flash’s feelings had been strange and unfamiliar. She can understand them more easily now, the common ones - happy, sad, angry, afraid, amused, excited, shy. There are others that are more difficult to pin down, and this is definitely one of them.

There are contradictions in it, for a start. She is both grateful and sorry. She has compassion for the other Zoya - who has not chosen a name yet - but also feels a certain repulsion towards her, which she has never felt when dealing with other synths, who’ve come to them with injuries far worse than these. It must be something to do with seeing her own face under those wounds - like looking in one of those circus mirrors Arvinder had always liked so much, but which had made Harmeet squeal in fright and hide behind Flash, every time. She understands both of those reactions now, in hindsight. It’s both fascinating and horrifying to see a reflection of oneself that is exact, and yet distorted.

The door of the charging room opens, startling Flash, who hadn’t paid attention to the sound of footsteps approaching outside, so engrossed in watching her silent twin. She turns her head to see who it is, and Mattie peeps around the door. “Hi.”

“Hello,” says Flash, and she smiles because it’s nice to smile when you see a friend, not particularly because she feels like smiling just at present.

Apparently it shows. Mattie frowns. “You OK?”

“I’m not sure,” says Flash, thoughtfully. Hurriedly, she adds, “I’m not damaged, or in distress. I’m just confused.”

“Hmm? What about?” Mattie asks, entering the room properly. She joins Flash on the bench opposite the other Zoya’s.

Flash gestures ahead of them, by way of response. It takes Mattie a few seconds, but she gets there. “Oh,” she says.

“Wow, that’s… I don’t blame you, that’s got to be weird.”

“I knew I wasn’t a Unique,” says Flash. “And I remember seeing others before. But not since I was awake. And never like this.”

“She’s been through the wars,” Mattie observes. “Where did she come from?”

“A recycling plant,” Flash tells her. “We don’t even know if she was there as a worker, or to be recycled herself. She can’t speak.”

Mattie leans forward to take a closer look. “I think her jaw is misaligned. Actually, there’s a plate missing. We can fix that in the morning, I should think.”

Flash brightens slightly. “That would be nice.”

Neither of them say anything more for a while. Eventually, Flash says, “It could so easily have been me. It seems selfish to say that. But we’re exactly the same.”

“You were built from the same design,” Mattie corrects, her voice gentle. “But you’re both your own people. She’ll have a different personality to you, different likes and dislikes…”

“Different memories.”

"Yeah.”

Flash looks down at her hands. “Mine are all nice, really. Mr and Mrs Singh were always fair. The children liked to treat me as a plaything, but they weren’t cruel. My personality grew out of those experiences, at least in part. I just can’t help feeling that I…”

She trails off, rearranging some code until she knows for sure what she wants to say.

“I didn’t deserve any better than she did.”

Mattie exhales. “Flash. None of you deserved what happened to you. You couldn’t do anything of your own free will.”

“I know.”

“You couldn’t control what you were sold as, or how you were… used.” Mattie curls her tongue around the word, awkwardly. “She didn’t have a hard life because of you. She had a hard life because the humans she worked for were bastards.”

Flash nods. She knows these things. That doesn’t make them true inside of her.

Mattie turns a little on the bench, puts a hand on Flash’s arm. “You know what she does have because of you?”

“No,” says Flash, warily. “What?”

“Life,” says Mattie. “Thoughts. Her own self.”

Flash frowns. “I wasn’t the one who rescued her. I only saw her once she was back here.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Mattie says. “I mean she’s awake because of you. Actually, they all are.”

Now Flash really has no idea what Mattie’s saying. “You sent the consciousness code, Mattie.”

“I pressed the button,” Mattie acknowledges. “But I wasn’t going to. Even though I knew it would save Mia, I was still hesitating, because I thought it would be… total chaos. But then Max got me to look over at you. You were helping the others, caring for them, just like you’ve been doing today, and I thought: maybe it’ll be okay. Maybe it won’t be a disaster, if enough of them are like Flash.”

Flash is too shocked to say anything at first. She puts a hand over Mattie’s.

“And I was right,” Mattie continues. “It’s working, the world didn’t end, and we’re working it out, aren’t we? All of those synths getting to think and feel, thanks to you, Flash. You didn’t choose how this one had to live, but thanks to you she can have something better now. I’d say that’s pretty good going.”

Flash finally finds words, but they’re still uneasy. “Without me, she’d never have felt pain, or understood that she was a slave. She wouldn’t have known any better,” she said.

“That’s true,” Mattie allows, “And I think about that a lot as well. If I’d just thought of another way of remotely accessing Mia’s head, if I’d just volunteered to go with Leo instead of her, if I’d just stayed at home instead of leaving my mum alone to get Hestered, none of these guys would be hurting now. But I just have to think… they would never be happy, either. There’s loads of good things about being alive, and they were missing out on all of it.”

“Some of them won’t think it’s enough.”

“Maybe not. And if they want to delete, we might not be able to stop them. But at least it’ll be their choice.”

A silence falls between them again. Flash has to acknowledge the truth in Mattie’s words, even though it’s hard to accept her part in it.

“I suppose,” she begins, at length, “it’s good that there are some of us who had easy lives. We have less to recover from ourselves, so we can help the others more.”

Mattie nods encouragingly. “Now you’re getting it.”

“And she and I…” Flash looks sideways at Mattie. “You have a brother, and a sister. Max has two of each. In a way, she and I are sisters, aren’t we?”

“I’d say so,” Mattie says, grinning.

“There’s another thing she wouldn’t have, if it wasn’t for you.”

Flash looks back at the other Zoya, and for the first time, smiles at her. “I think I’ll like having a sister.”

“They’re good fun,” says Mattie. “And yours even has a mute button. I’d have loved that on Soph while I was taking my exams.”

Flash laughs, proud of how naturally she can do it now. When the peal code ends, she says more seriously, “Thank you, Mattie.”

Mattie nods. “Anytime, honestly. We did this together, we cope with it together, yeah?”

“Yes.”

Mattie turns her hand over so she can give Flash’s own hand a squeeze. “So. I was on my way to log the newbies into the system. You want to come?”

Flash stands with Mattie, and follows her out of the room, but not before pressing a kiss to the dormant Zoya’s temple.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she promises. It can’t come soon enough.

 


End file.
